


The Darwin Vision : Out of Time

by shandy_and_champagne



Category: Shadow and Bone (TV), Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo, The Grisha Trilogy - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Victorian, Assassination, Character Development, Children, Children of Characters, Dark World, F/M, Family, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Smut, French Revolution, Grief/Mourning, Immortality, Italy, Married Characters, Multi, Napoleonic Wars, Non-Linear Narrative, Past Character Death, Reincarnation, Russia, Russian Empire, Sad, Sad with a Happy Ending, So much angst, Soul Bond, War, letting go, so much pain, soc minor crossover, stick with me y'all this is going to be an investment, the shadow fold
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-07
Updated: 2021-03-06
Packaged: 2021-03-12 23:07:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29891934
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shandy_and_champagne/pseuds/shandy_and_champagne
Summary: Alina and Aleks were like the sun and the moon. Ageless, eternal and opposites; forever faced with the reality that they had only each other for company. Only one other person that could truly understand the plight of immortality. One person with whom they could either wage war, or love with the strength of a thousand years.
Relationships: The Darkling | Aleksander Morozova/Alina Starkov
Comments: 2
Kudos: 25





	The Darwin Vision : Out of Time

**Author's Note:**

> So, I've had this immortality story idea rattling around in my mind for the past five years now and I finally decided to merge it with Shadow and Bone and make a darklina au that no one asked for :) 
> 
> If you're at all interested in this idea let me know in the comments, I love to hear from you.
> 
> The prologue was written to 'Duck Shoot' by Rupert Gregson-Williams.
> 
> Disclaimer: all the characters from S&B and SOC belong to Leigh Bardugo.

_July 1792, The Kingdom of France_

_**Alina**_

Alina had never been entirely sure what awoke her that day. It may have been the symphony of bird calls, the golden morning light that beamed through the sash, or the soft, persistent tickle down her spine. Whatever it was, a strange sense of contentment filled her and a faint smile touched her lips.

The room was as it had always been; the way it lingered in her memory, right down to the finest details: a heavy crystal chandelier hanging from the high ceiling, scattering the incoming light into rainbows that danced with the hovering dust mites across the olive-panelled walls. The crisp white bedding. Everything ornamented with gold: the bed frame, the mirrors, the armoire, the ceiling, and the dozens of tiny replicas of the Morozov family crest; the Eclipsed Sun. 

Idyllic. If a little gaudy.

As familiar as her own skin, the soft tickling continued - a feather-light touch that made her squirm as it reached the sensitive spot where her neck met her shoulder. 

His kisses roamed lazily, lovingly, growing more insistent when he noticed she was awake. She delighted in slow mornings like these, they filled her with a ghostly hope.

He navigated back to that ticklish spot and Alina jolted, squealing in protest. 

A deep, throaty chuckle - and his wicked mouth wandered up her neck. Alina smiled fully then, rolling onto her back.

Aleksander was close enough that his dark hair brushed her forehead. she smiled up at him broadly, without reservation. 

He quirked his lips wryly, but the quiet happiness in his eyes betrayed him. He leaned down to brush a lingering kiss to her lips.

“Good morning, darling.” 

She reached up to place a peck on the corner of his mouth, and another on the tip of his nose.

He scrunched up his nose in mock irritation. The little creases around his eyes made her chest ache. She swallowed and hid her face in his shoulder, under the guise of planting another kiss on the well-defined muscle there.

“How are you, moya Alinochka?” he pushed her back gently, his black eyes held a glimmer of smugness quickly disguised as concern, “Not too exhausted, I hope?”

She rolled her eyes. _This man, honestly._

“No, actually,” she stretched languidly, her body slowly catching up with her mind. “In fact, I find my spirits lie more towards the... incandescent end of the spectrum at present.” To prove her point, she reached up to gently run her fingers through his thick hair, savouring the silken texture.

He huffed a laugh, admiring her figure that she was shamelessly showing off, “Well, I am glad. I _had_ worried last night’s… escapades may have worn you out.”

“You were worried? How dreadfully chivalrous of you.” 

He hummed in agreement and nudged her nose with his own. “I was afraid I'd have to ask Mme Faubert if she could most kindly postpone breakfast so we could remain abed.” 

“ _Vraiment?_ ” she murmured, mind suddenly full of very enticing ideas that revolved around staying in bed. All day, preferably. She ran a suggestive leg up his side, feeling his arms come around her “And would that be such a terrible thing?”

He raised an eyebrow and his striking eyes glazed over a little. 

“Terrible?” He pretended to think about it, his face the picture of seriousness. “Oh yes, _absolutely…_ ” 

Aleks laughed darkly and leaned down to kiss her again, softly at first, but she wrapped her arms around his shoulders, pulling them deeper. 

There was a painful twinge in the back of her mind, but she pushed the thoughts away that threatened to surface. She clung to him desperately, feeling the softness of his back beneath her fingers, nibbling the soft flesh of his lower lip. She drew the moment in and around herself like a shield to the outside world.

She wouldn’t let this go. Not ever.

Their fingers entwined and he raised her arms above her head. He had never been one to treat her gently, not often at least, and she found she preferred it that way - in fact, there had been several knife wounds involved with their first meeting. Even now, after so many years, the way he held her so possessively sparked a yearning deep in her core. 

“We need-” she interrupted him with a kiss as he tried to speak around her, “Need -” another kiss,“breakfast-”

“Breakfast can hang.” she muttered.

He didn’t protest much after that.

He devoured her mouth and ground his body against hers, his youthful figure sleek and beautiful. She could easily spend hours, just mapping his body with her hands, with her teeth and tongue. She thought of feeling the taut muscles of his abdomen stretch and flex, running her tongue along the veins in his arms that extended deliciously to the backs of his hands. And his hands. She thought his hands might just have been her favourite - they sparked a fire in her and turned her skin molten with even the slightest touch. As it was now, they were doing wonderful things to her legs, wrapping them around his waist and dragging his nails lightly over her inner thighs enough that she shivered.

The moment was infinite and she wanted to crawl inside it and never leave, to lock herself away in this room forever. So that they might never see the light of day beyond these four walls.

Alina groaned as he shifted, and she grabbed his shoulder blades tighter, pulling him in closer. Inches from where she needed him.

He chuckled darkly and broke away.

“ _Breakfast_ ,” he said more to himself this time than her, “We have to be dressed and ready: My mother is visiting the manor today.” 

She huffed in frustration. It was just like Bagrah to show up at the most inconvenient moments, even if this visit had been planned for over a month.

“Your mother has impeccable timing, as always” she didn’t even bother to hide the ire in her tone.

“Indeed, I find I constantly have to remind myself that the woman did birth and raise me, however inconvenient such a notion may be.”

Alina sighed.

“I suppose we cannot disappoint her, then.” She raised a finger and pointed it in his direction accusingly, “Fine, breakfast. But I am most certainly not finished here.” 

“I’d expect nothing less,” he purred.

She laughed and kissed his cheek in a deceptively chaste promise before reluctantly disentangling herself from him. 

She swung her legs over the side of the bed and picked up her robe from the floor beside the dresser, ostensibly where one of them had taken it off after their third round of ‘escapades’ last night. She wrapped it around herself and made to stand.

For a moment, it almost looked as though he would let her leave, that this moment would play out exactly as it was intended, just like all the rest. But, at the last second, something in his demeanor changed, and Aleks wound a firm arm around her bare waist, trapping her in his iron embrace as if he would hold her there indefinitely.

That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Alina raised a brow at this sudden change of heart, but what she then saw in his eyes was not desire, but an altogether different emotion.

The echo in her heart fluttered dangerously against the walls of her mind again. Something wanted to be let in. She didn’t know what it was, or what it meant, only that she had to keep pushing it out for as long as she could. _She had to._

Aleks pulled her into him, rolling them over, and buried his face in her hair, inhaling deeply, as if he too were savouring the moment. 

Where his forehead met her shoulder, she felt the distinct dampness of tears.

Alina’s chest ached and her chin wobbled. She clutched the arm that held her tighter, unwilling to let go.

_No._

It was going to end.

It was too soon, there wasn’t time. They never had enough time.

“It’s not fair,” he whispered, his voice suddenly raw, such a stark difference to not a moment ago. 

She breathed shakily, blinking away the tears that marred her vision. She couldn’t waste a second of this on thinking about what was outside.

“I know,” she said.

“We should have stayed in bed.”

Her face crumpled and she scrunched up her eyes, pushing it down, down, down. The serene moment had warped so quickly, she felt emotionally whiplashed. 

Her voice broke on her whisper, “I know.”

“Alina -”

“No. Don’t.” she stopped him. They couldn’t waste it. She wiped her eyes hastily and turned to face him. Aleks’ eyes were red-rimmed and held such a staggering pain and sadness that it physically hurt her to see it. But she pushed it all down, locking it away in a tiny box, shoved under piles of more pleasant dreams in her mind. 

All her precious delusions laid out so carefully, like a set of rare china dolls.

She smiled, desperate to regain the moment. “We’re here now. We get this much at least. We can’t waste it - I don’t want to waste it, Sasha. _Please_.” 

A plea for mercy.

His eyes were dark pools and reflected a deep, bottomless agony that she purposefully ignored. There was remorse in that agony. There was pity. He seemed to war with himself for a moment, shades of anger and a storm-like fury flickering in his mind. Those things weren't supposed to be here, not in this place. She begged him with her eyes.

_Let it be. Let us have this. Let me believe it, just for a minute._

“Alright,” he acquiesced reluctantly after a heartbeat. He looked entirely like a man backed into an impossible corner. Guilt rose like bile in her throat - burning her nose and eyes and making it difficult to breathe.

Alina took his face in her hands. She already felt the room slipping away. But, no, she was about to go for breakfast. Tea and butter croissants. That was all.

Still, she couldn’t fight the burst of panic that seized her.

“You, my love,” she whispered fiercely, “Are my heart, plain and simple.” She pinned him like a butterfly with broken wings beneath her beseeching gaze. “Nothing as ephemeral as reality can keep me from you. You are just as much a part of me as I am.”

Aleksander studied her, his expression one of quiet rage. She didn’t see it. Or chose not to.

“What sort of ethereal creature must you be that you should love me so unconditionally?” He brushed her hair back from her forehead, “What have I ever done that the Saints deem me worthy of such a wife?” 

He was looking at her, but his question was aimed at the world at large.

She shook her head sadly, and gave a weak smile, rubbing her thumb gently over his cheekbone. He was always doubtful, always talking of deserving and earning, when all she had ever needed was him, as he was, making her feel the way only he made her feel, loving her the way only someone capable of equally strong malice and wrath could do.

“It was never about worthiness. It is about choice. And I _will_ choose you, in every time, in every life. I promise.”

She pressed their foreheads together as if she could imprint the words on time itself through sheer force of will alone. In her mind, she forged the connection, grasping his soul with hers and brandishing them at the feet of the Saints - screaming her defiance to the stars, to the skies, to anyone who would listen and everyone who wouldn’t - daring them to try and force them apart.

They could pry him from her cold, dead hands.

She looked into his black eyes and saw only memories. Thousands of them; all that had happened and all that was yet to come. She kissed him once more, this one forlorn with longing for things that could never be.

“I promise you, Aleks” she whispered onto his lips.

“I promise you.”

The words echoed off the hollow walls of the asylum, as though they were answering her where she sat upright, on her cot, staring blankly into the darkness. As though he was somehow still there with her, when she spoke her vow to the cracked green tiles and cobwebs.

_I promise._

**Author's Note:**

> This is going to be quite the commitment, but I'm optimistic.
> 
> Let me know what you thought of this chapter, I thrive off your comments ;)


End file.
